"You
look at this stadium, you look ... I have some of the greatest
memories in the world that have been provided to me by the Atlanta
Braves," Mazzone told the Associated Press before that June 30, 2006 game.

"That will never go away. They all come back when you walk in the stadium. If you think I don't feel awkward sitting in this dugout right now, I do."

Mazzone
played in the minors between 1967 and 1975, never making the majors. By
1978, Mazzone was a manager, of the independent Kinston Eagles, dispensing his thoughts on how his players could get to the majors.

"Everybody out there wants to make it to the big leagues," Mazzone told the Associated Press in a July 1978 article. "If they don't, they're in the wrong business."

Mazzone signed on with the Braves organization the next year, in 1979. He made it to Atlanta briefly in 1985 as a pitching coach, returning to the minors the next year. He became pitching coach at AAA Richmond in 1988.

"There are those who suggest Mazzone's success is based more on good fortune than anything else," ESPN.com's Jeff Merron wrote in September 2005,
before Mazzone's departure to Baltimore. Merron noted the list of top
pitchers Mazzone coached. "But the fact is this: Most pitchers get
better when they join the Braves, and many get worse after they
depart."